Archive for the ‘The Church’ category
November 8, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. November 8, 2017
Today is the birthday of my oldest daughter, Kecia Corin (Wolfe) Hodges. She hit the three followed by the six this morning at 1:21 a.m. Being considerate of her pastor dad, she waited until early that Sunday morning back in 1981 to join her parents. I went to church that day bleary-eyed but on Cloud Nine!
Thirty-six years later she parents three amazing kids who have enormous amounts of energy, teaches fourth graders, and keeps her husband organized.
Kecia has always had a creative side to her. When she was ten she went on a mission trip with me to Keams Canyon, Arizona. We had a great week, but the two of us left a day before everyone else on our team, heading back to Michigan so that I could be there for Sunday morning worship. I’ll always remember her entertaining herself in the long, long, long car ride back making a McDonald’s Happy Meal out of paper, crayons, and a pair of scissors. She was detailed to the point of making individual french fries and inserting them in the made-to-order container. That creativity has also blessed several hundred fourth grade students over the years. Even though teaching has become more challenging in recent years due to dysfunctional families, helicopter parents, and prima donna students, she is passionate about it. Her guiding question is “how can I help my students be fully engaged in learning what needs to be taught?”
Kecia is a great mom. Make no mistake about it, she rules the house! Not like a dictator, but rather as a shepherd leading the flock in the journey that includes stumbles, celebrations, problems to solve, and new adventures to tackle.
And today she begins to tip the age scale towards forty and less towards thirty! Ironically, in my mind she’s still more like twenty-five. Her mind is youthful. She’s more optimistic about life than pessimistic about people. Even though her classroom gets several challenging students each year the frustrations of teaching have not hardened her to the purpose or hazed over the mission.
She’s a great daughter! Carol and I feel that she deeply respects and loves us. She trusts our wisdom and suggestions. We are thrilled by every encounter we have with her.
Thirty-six years ago when she arrived in this world there was a Code Blue that went out. She had swallowed some fluid in the birthing process, and we remember her being treated on the infant table over in the corner of the birthing room. Carol and I held hands and uttered a prayer. This was our firstborn who was teetering on the rim between life and death.
And then we heard the lungs give a cry, and tears flowed from our eyes a few feet away. God gifted her to us and he has used her these past thirty-six years to bless the lives of numerous people.
In fact, I’m tearing up again! Happy Birthday, Kecia!
Categories: children, Christianity, Faith, Grandchildren, Humor, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: being blessed, birth, birthdays, blessed, children, creativity, fourth graders, kids, oldest child, Purpose, teaching
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November 5, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. November 5, 2017
When Coach Jim Franklin ran like a madman towards the end zone at the end of his Penn State football team’s heartbreaking loss at Michigan State yesterday I, like most people who saw him sprinting, thought he was going to chastise the officials for some perceived blunder. When it turned out he was sprinting to catch some of his players who were heading to the locker room without shaking hands with the Spartan players it was reassuring that in the intensity of the contest someone whose job depends on winning still had the right perspective.
Even though the cameras caught his mad dash it was not something that had been orchestrated. It was simply the right thing to do, the correct decision made at a moment’s notice. The integrity of the decision was amplified considering the game had been interrupted by a weather delay of almost three and a half hours.
How many of us would have lost our cool if we had to wait to catch a delayed flight for three and a half hours? Raise your hand! Both of mine are pointing skyward.
There seem to be a lot of people who are willing to preach what is right in the moment when the cameras are rolling, or the press has a microphone stuck in front of their face, but the list gets a lot shorter of people who are willing to do the right thing in the heat of the moment.
Recently my wife, Carol, was at a high school volleyball game. Liberty High School was playing one of their arch rivals at the opponent’s gym. She heard and observed some actions- or, perhaps inactions- of a group of students of the host school. One young man had made a comment to one of the Liberty players on the court that had explicit sexual connotations to it. The group he was a part of included several young ladies. What Carol noticed was that not one of the female students was willing to do what was right at that moment. No one was willing to confront the young man with inappropriateness of his comment.
Yes, they were just high school students! High school students who have had it drilled into them in recent years about what sexual harassment and bullying is. Sometimes, however, all the knowledge in the world won’t cause someone to do what is right in the moment. Embarrassing someone causes cheap laughter and integrity never seeks to humiliate. It is too respectful for that.
Each one of us gets faced with a multiple of decisions that have two or more solutions. Many of those decisions also have a dividing line. Think a volleyball court with one side being right and the other side wrong. There are clear indications as to which side the ball- the decided on response- is on. None of us make all the right decisions, but over the course of a day, a week, a month it becomes clear who are the people who have integrity and who aren’t. Who are the ones who understand the right decision, the right thing to say, at that moment; and who are the ones who lack character and moral substance.
As a pastor I wish I could say that Christians have it all together, but, alas, I’ve met and seen too many people who confess to following Christ and have no integrity- people who stomp off towards the locker room when they don’t get their way.
Jim Franklin gets paid a lot of money to make right decisions, but they usually have to do with deciding when it’s a good time to blitz the quarterback or do a fake punt. His sprint to the end zone yesterday wasn’t what Penn State had in mind when they paid him to make the right decisions, and yet it was probably the best right decision he made all day.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, coaching, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: character, doing what's right, Football, good sportsmanship, having character, having integrity, inappropriate comments, integrity, Jim Franklin, Michigan State Spartans, Penn State, shaking hands, sportsmanship
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October 31, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. October 31, 2017
This morning our area was greeted with a dusting of snow, twenty-six degrees, and fog. It’s one of those mornings that a person is tempted to fall back into bed to the clarity of being covered with warm blankets.
Most of us, however, don’t have the option of doing that. There are places to go, appointments to keep, and work details to get accomplished. The fog is just one of those things we’ll have to brave this morning. The fog changes how we approach the beginning of our day. Those who refuse to believe that often end up off the side of the road, or crashed into the rear bumper of the car in front of them. And there are plenty of people who are like that…careless, and idiotic!
What about the fog of the moment in our life? What about when things aren’t clear as to where the road is leading, when the next step may lead to a person’s life spinning out of control? What about when a decision that needs to be made is as clear as Mud Creek?
The wise person is one who understands that life must sometimes move ahead slowly, cautiously, preceded with and followed by prayer. The fool is the one who rushes ahead regardless of the situation and circumstances. Solomon’s words to the wise in Proverbs 12:15 say, “The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice…” Our world is well-populated with people who think their way is right, regardless of the fog of the moment!
But the wise listen to advice, they listen to possible solutions to the uncertainty in front of them, and they proceed slowly. Yes, there is some fog in the midst of our journey of faith. Abram had faith even though he did not know where it was the Lord was leading him, but let’s be honest! For most of us the chaos of our lives results from our reckless rushing into the fog.
The fool trusts his own understanding, but the wise trusts in the leadings of the Lord.
There’s another learning from the fog of the moment that needs to be said. The effects of foolishness often crash up into the ways of the wise. It isn’t fair, but it’s the ripple effect of a fallen creation…that the stupidity of others causes pain in the lives of those who are going the right way. I fully expect that the news of our area this morning will include stories of multiple car crashes, and that the accident was ignited by the carelessness of one. Following Jesus and living wisely does not mean trials will pass you by. The trial may have just rammed you in the rear!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Faith, Freedom, Humor, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: as clear as mud, careless, carelessness, clarity, faith journey, fog, foggy morning, foolish decisions, foolishness, fools, Proverbs, Solomon, trust, trusting, wisdom, wise, wise people
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October 22, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. October 22, 2017
I invited my friend, Ron McKinney, to join me yesterday at the health club Carol and I belong to. It was “Bring A Guest Day”, and Ron likes to workout, so he accepted the invitation. I’m “feeling” his friendship today!
I made the suggestion that he show me some weight training lifts that could improve my abs. I still have illusions of developing a “six pack”, or even a “four pack”. At the moment I have a rounded “one pack”!
After my usual thirty minutes on a thread mill, during which he used a step climber that looked like torture, we went down to the weight area. In the weight training I’ve done it has always been the weight machines that I’ve used. Ron, however, likes the stand-alone weights…like we had 45 years ago in high school.
He took me through several types of lifts, from squats to pull-ups, to arm curls, to “standing sit-ups”, to bench presses. He smiled as I grunted and groaned.
This morning I had a hard time lifting my toothbrush! My abs feel like a semi ran over them! My chest is asking for the day off…apart from the rest of my body!
It didn’t help that this was my first day back at the health club in two weeks. Bronchitis had sidelined me for a while. The muscles that Ron made me use, however, had been put on the shelf for quite a while. Quite frankly, they were like those cans of food in the pantry with the expiration date already passed.
Sometimes it seems my spiritual fitness has forgotten muscle groups as well. I get out of prayer-shape to the point where my prayers seem uncoordinated and stuttered. Meditation becomes a foreign practice, and worship feels weird. In the church we talk a lot about renewal (as we hold our Sunday morning donut), but renewal seems far away and like a dream to someone who is spiritually flabby. It’s like trying to go from Point A to Point Z, without having to stop anywhere along the way.
The question for me is will I have the desire and perseverance to get back to some of those lifting exercises Ron showed me tomorrow? Will I build on the knowledge and the routines that were demonstrated for me and develop better muscle tone?
Spiritually, when I get out of sync am I willing to admit my state of casualness and commit to striving towards intimacy with Jesus and a hunger in my spirit? Do I have the willingness to be who God intended for me to be, and to be draw as close as he desires for me to be?
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: developing muscles, health club, lifting weights, muscle groups, muscles, out of shape, sore muscles, spiritual fitness, Spiritual Growth, spiritual health, spiritual hunger, Spiritual renewal, thread mill, weight training, working out
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October 20, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. October 20, 2017
The past two weeks I’ve been battling a cold which turned into bronchitis. After a few days of the medicines and seeing my physician I was feeling better. Carol was scheduled to watch our three grandkids at our daughter’s house so I drove her over there.
“Granddad has a cold so he can’t give you a hug, okay?” They looked at me with a mixture of “How could you do such a thing?” to sympathy.
And then two and a half year old Corin Grace came over to me and hugged one of my legs! It was the best medicine I received that day.
One of the stories in the New Testament that I find confusing and amusing is when the disciples try to keep the children from coming to Jesus. The story appears in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In Matthew 19:13 it says, “Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them.”
Jesus in turn rebukes the disciples and says “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
Embarrassed disciples slowly creep off to the side as the children come to Jesus and do some leg hugging. I envision the chuckling of the Savior as little Corin’s and miniature David’s attach themselves to the part of his robe that covered his legs.
Perhaps I’m reading into the situation too much, like a Hollywood movie director adding a bit more to the scene than was really there, but, in my opinion, it is a picture of who Jesus was and is. He gave value to those who were considered to have no value. He raised women, children, and the outcasts up, making the point that everyone is valued and loved by God. To Jesus a small child was no less important than the most powerful king. The scribes and Pharisees were seated at the same table in the Kingdom of God as the toddler who has half of his food plastered to his face. In essence, Jesus had no time for those who had no time for the least of these.
When Corin hugged my leg she held tight for a few seconds. I can see children holding tight to Jesus. Could it be that in those “holding tight” moments Jesus was being ministered to as much as he was blessing the huggers?
It won’t be too long until he will be grabbed hold of by some others who do not love him!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: grandchildren, grandkids, grandparents, hugging, Jesus and the little children, leg hugging, little children, Matthew 19, people with value, valuing children, valuing others
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October 15, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. October 15, 2017
Yesterday twenty five people descended on an aging church building in a town of five hundred people to be a help. Bill Hale, nine days my junior but years ahead of me in wisdom and craftsmanship, developed the idea along with our area denominational staff person, Mike Oldham.
The idea was to invite a few churches and individuals to come to Simla, a small town on Highway 24 that you would have no reason to go to if you weren’t heading someplace past it, and provide some labor for a few hours that would allow the church to get a few needed projects completed.
The First Baptist Church of Simla is a congregation of about twenty dear people. Bill Hale, Ed Stucky, and myself have been sharing pulpit responsibilities there for the last year and a half or so. They do not have a pastor, although they do have a parsonage right next door to the church.
The group of servers came from Pueblo, Greeley, Colorado Springs, San Antonio, Texas, and, of course, Simla! They ranged in age from four to seventy-four. One man, who owns a company in Colorado Springs, brought his “bucket truck” that allowed limbs and branches from the trees in front of the church that are about as old as sarcasm to be cut back. The carpet in the sanctuary was shampooed, the church sign was touched up with paint. There was painting done to the outside of the building after a power washing was done, and the wood frames of the stained glass windows got a needed fixing up. Sidewalks got edged, weeds got pulled, and the lawn got mowed and trimmed. Massive efforts that meant so much to the people of the church.
What I’ve learned from Simla is that small churches are worth the effort. For me Simla has become my home church. Most Sundays when I’m not speaking there I still travel the forty-five minutes east of Colorado Springs to worship with the “salt of Simla.” Small churches have a purpose. It may not revolve around budgets, staff, and packing the sanctuary, but they have a purpose. The Simla Saints have started doing community ministry efforts with the United Methodist Church a block down the street. They’ve even had discussions about how the three churches in town might have occasional worship services together, interchanging the pastors as the speakers. This past summer they made a good-sized contribution for the beginning expenses of a missionary family who had already been commissioned by the American Baptist Churches to go to Chiapas, Mexico, but were trying to raise the last few thousand dollars that were needed as seed money. The Simla Saints gave the contribution and also started supporting the missionary family on a monthly basis.
They will never be a mega-church. They wouldn’t know how to handle that. The town of Simla has shrunk by two-thirds in the last twenty years. Mega-churches rarely happen in villages of diminishing size located between here and nowhere. Every week, however, fifteen to twenty people gather in the sanctuary of this church. They don’t whine about their size. Size does not effect the purpose or change the mission. Their purpose is to be Light in a community that struggles to keep on going.
Too many churches are trying to be great! Churches already have the greatest story to share. Sometimes it seems a congregation is trying to be greater than the story!
Simla is a love story of hope that tells of God’s love story. Call me simple, but when I retired from the ministry that’s what I was looking for…and it causes me to keep on keeping on!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: American Baptist Churches, being salt, being the hands and feet of Jesus, Chiapas, community life, community ministry, Community service, God's love story, helping one another, Mission, missions, serving, serving one another, Simla, small churches, small town church, the small church, work day
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September 30, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. September 30, 2017
Carol and I were driving home from a wedding recently and she said to me, “I think that’s the first wedding I’ve been to where God was never mentioned.”
“You’re right! No prayers, no blessings, nothing with any spiritual meaning to it!”
Of course, why invite the presence of God if he isn’t a part of your life? Seems a bit contradictory to do that! At least this couple was being authentic in their ceremony. How many other marriage ceremonies have been spiritual in appearance, but the One who created love goes missing afterwards?
I don’t want to create a whole divine conspiracy on the basis of God not being invited to one marriage ceremony I attend, but I think we’d be idiots to think that the importance of the Almighty has not taken a dip! In many lives he’s segregated from the daily routines and opportunities. He’s like Uncle Fred who never gets invited to family gatherings any more because no one feels comfortable around him.
Instead of God being at the center of our lives many of us now look for how he might fit into our lives. He’s like that weird puzzle piece that needs to go somewhere, but I’ll put it to the side until most of the rest of my puzzled life gets put together.
The secular wedding ceremony was like a wake up call for me. In what areas of my life do I relegate God to the luggage rack, attached to the top of the vehicle of my life but strapped to a place where I can’t hear him?
In what ways am I “faking it” with my Jesus journey?
In what ways is the church faking it? In what ways is the church hindering the relevance of the spiritual faith of its people?
Those are all tough questions which are being asked by less and less people the more God goes missing.
Years ago one of the young ladies on my basketball team responded to a directive I gave to the team before the season started. I had told them that if any of them had boyfriends that they were to put them on the back burner for the next three months. This delightful young lady (who is now in law school) looked at me and said, “Coach, boyfriends are like a pocketbook. They’re just an accessory!” We still laugh at that storyline years later!
But, you know something! God has become an accessory for many of us, and has been easily shoved to the back burner!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Jesus, love, marriage, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: diminishing spiritual influence, non-churched, secular wedding ceremony, spiritual journey, the absence of God, unchurched, wedding ceremony, Weddings
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September 27, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. September 27, 2017
It was a bad sign! In the Sunday announcement sheet under informational items there was that blurb that was probably intended to be a forewarning of what was about to come!
“Ear plugs are available at the Information Booth for anyone who needs them.”
It’s a bad sign when they care about your hearing! When I was pastoring we cared also, but it was for those who had diminished hearing so they borrowed a hearing device that helped amplify the sound of the speaker or music. This was the other direction. This was: “We’re going to turn up the volume so much that you’re going to be thinking you’re standing by a jet engine on steroids! So you might want to put these in your ears!”
I’m 63 and I realize I’m sneaking up on crotchety! I’m becoming like a dear saintly lady from the church I pastored in Mason, Michigan. Grace Ankney was a great lady who couldn’t hear squat! And she would let the speaker know that by yelling from her third row seat, “I can’t hear you!” I don’t remember what Grace’s spiritual gifts were, but she scored low on hospitality!
And here I was about to shout “I can’t hear myself!” But, of course, I couldn’t hear myself so I didn’t say it.
I realize the church I was attending last Sunday is designed for a younger crowd…soon to be younger deaf crowd…and there are all kinds of churches for all kinds of people. I’m a person of grace who is fairly tolerant about circumstances and situations. I remember the “worship wars” of the 1980’s when that period’s older generation fought hard against the new worship music that was settling upon the hearts of congregations. Our leadership council had several hours of discussion about it. We did planning retreats where we sought to figure out the direction we were going in worship, while being sensitive to those who liked it the way it had been…for fifty years!
I remember one young man from my church asking me if the lady who played the organ could take the parking brake off! On the other side, an older couple left for greener, hymnier, pastures because we had sung a couple of praise songs that had produced clapping, albeit Baptist clapping, which sounds kind of like the light patter of rain on the driveway.
And now I was that couple…longing for a calmer sanctuary of praise music. Just to be fair, the songs we sang last Sunday were all familiar to me. I knew the words to three of them, but since I couldn’t hear my own voice I never sang any of them. It wasn’t that I was being vain. Although people say I have a good voice I’m not infatuated by the sound of it. I just like to know that I can hear the words that I’m speaking or singing!
And now I’m starting to type kind of crotchety!
I’m a “has been” who is still being. This Sunday I’ll travel back out to the little congregation of twenty in a town forty-five minutes from where we live and give the Sunday message. We’ll sing some songs together in a sanctuary with great acoustics, and I’ll get a bag of fresh produce from a couple of farmers who bring in their excess each week. It will be totally different from my experience from last week where we had to park a few hundred yards away. This Sunday at Simla everyone can park right next to the building.
Perhaps that’s who I am now…a participant of a small congregation journeying together in a slow walk. At Simla this Sunday we won’t need ear plugs. Two sixth grade boys will take up the offering. There will be a Sunday bulletin, which we really won’t need because the order of worship is almost always the same. And after church people will grab a cup of weak coffee, a cookie, and stand around talking for a good 20 to 30 minutes.
That’s now where I feel at home, it’s where I sense the closeness of God and the struggles of his saints, and I’m okay with that!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: crotchety, ear plugs, grumpy, hearing devices, loud music, loud music in worship, Mason Michigan, new worship, praise songs, small churches, Worship, worship music, worship wars
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September 24, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. September 24, 2017
But I’m a pastor!
That’s usually my reaction to having an honest admittance of being at a point of spiritual stagnation. Pastors are suppose to have the glow of Moses, the wisdom of Solomon, and the spiritual chanting of the monastic desert fathers. Instead of profanity every other word we’re suppose to punctuate our language with spiritual language like “Yes, Glory!” and “Praise his name!”
So what should I do when I’m in a place of indifference? Deny it? Hope it’s like a bunion that’s on my foot that no one will see and will just go away…someday…maybe…I hope so?
I’m indifferent about a lot of things…stewed tomatoes…professional basketball, even though I’m a basketball coach and still lace the sneakers up at age 63!…Walmart…Nebraska…generic cereal…there’s a lot of places, events, and items that I am totally indifferent about. Translated: I could care less! But my relationship with the Majestic is different. I care, I love, I serve, and yet there are those times when I just want to be left alone and be spiritually irresponsible!
I’m about to slap myself into some sense!
Most of David’s songs and laments to the Lord in the book of Psalms deal with his plea for God to not turn his back on him.
“How long, Lord? Will you forgive me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Psalm 13:1)
“My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’ Your face, Lord, I will seek. Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior.” (Psalm 27:8-9)
It’s sobering to realize that God might be saying words with similar ideas towards me. How long will I disregard his presence? How long will I ignore his importance?
As I ponder the wandering a number of solutions come to mind. Reading scripture more, or memorizing the Word; a spiritual retreat; sitting down with Oswald Chambers; getting into a weekly bible study; finding a mentor or spiritual counselor…there’s a whole book of possibilities, but getting past the apathy is the highest hurdle to jump over. The other possibilities will help me in the staying on course.
I know I’m not the only one who deals with this, and yet I think I am the only one. I’m not alone and yet I feel like I’m all alone. People who have never been passionate about God don’t understand what I’m saying, and those who have been passionate and then lukewarm like a glass of day old Coke left on the kitchen counter have a sense of where I am.
I’m heading to church in a few minutes to listen and to hear, to investigate and ponder. Indifference is not like dry erase markings on a white board. It can’t be suddenly erased in a moment, but must be gradually smoothed away to uncover the spring of spiritual water.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: desert fathers, indifference, mentors, Psalm 13, Psalm 27, spiritual assistance, spiritual indifference, spiritual journey, spiritual mentor, spirutal apathy
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September 21, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. September 21, 2017
I wiped the cobwebs off the golf clubs and went, along with my friends Mike Oldham and Reggie Fletcher, out for a stroll around the golf course this past Monday. None of us were going for our PGA tour card. In fact, even though it was September 18th it was the first round of the year for all three of us.
None of us were on our game. When you play one round a year you don’t have “a game”! I was hitting the ball okay, mostly keeping it out of the rough, sand, and water. You need to understand something about my golf play. I don’t get upset if I hook it, splice it, miss it, or even hit a shot off the tee that doesn’t make it past the women’s tee. I also don’t get that excited about a good shot. I just enjoy the experience, the sunshine, and the fellowship.
The interesting thing, however, is that all three of us had a hard time putting the ball in the hole. The little white ball- or, in Reggie’s case, pink ball- went to the right of the hole, the left of the hole, rimmed around the hole, and short of the hole. To putt the ball in the hole was like trying to get a Cleveland Browns’ quarterback to throw a touchdown pass! Or, I should say, a professional quarterback of any Ohio NFL team!
We laughed at our ineptness. It wasn’t that we were trying to miss, but missing was the only thing we were consistent in doing.
And it hit me that the mission of the church often goes that way as well! The mission of the church is to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ in word and deed. It’s as simple as seeing the hole on the seventh green, and yet the simplicity of the mission is complicated by our ineptness in hitting it. We veer to the left to focus on discipline problems in church members, or we veer to the right to emphasize a sub-point of a doctrinal belief. The church hits a budget issue and pulls up short of the mission. It misreads a downhill slope and winds up twice as far from the hole of the mission.
I kept asking myself how I could be on the green of a four hundred yard hole in just three strokes, but then have to putt the ball three times before it went in? How could I come so far so quickly, but then fail so easily?
In terms of the church hitting the hole of its mission, the closer it gets to completion the greater the chance of having the mission derailed. In my years of pastoring churches I experienced this multiple times. It might be rephrased as “gaining momentum”, but it seemed that as we headed towards the hole of the mission something or someone would cause us to veer to the side. Squabbles, crises, disagreements about the music we were singing in worship, arguments about the children’s ministry, division about how much ministry should be done outside the walls of the church compared to ministry within the walls…there always seemed to be something that took our ball off course.
For the church to hit the hole of its mission a couple of things are important to remember. One is that it must read the green. Sometimes what seems to be the case is not the case. That little ridge on the right wasn’t seen, or that break on the left wasn’t probably diagnosed. I can remember a few times when I thought we had consensus on a certain direction only to have it derailed by a portion of the congregation who didn’t want to say anything to begin with, but then decided to speak up as the ball was rolling towards the mission. Some of those situations were simply because I didn’t read the breaks, or misread the situation. Others were because of a passive resistant group who simply wanted to stonewall the direction. When the church misreads the green it must recalculate the direction from a different point.
Second, the church must admit it missed and aim at the mission once again. In golf there is a definite difference between professional golfers and weekend duffers. Churches are kind of like that, also! There are churches that are better at reading the obstacles and distractions that will keep it from staying true to the mission, but there is not a single church that always reads the situation correctly. Since grace it vital to who followers of Jesus are, grace must be a part of the journey. When I putted my ball and it went three feet to the left of the hole I had to be willing to start from a different point and continue my quest. It’s the same for the Body of Christ. What needs to be changed to have the next attempt be better aimed at the hole of the mission?
The game of golf is the great revealer of failure. On Monday my frequency of failing was in abundance. Perhaps my once-a-year visit to the golf course had something to do with my game being haphazard! There may be a life lesson there for once-a-year worship attenders as well, but I won’t go there! I’ll just veer off to the left, so to speak!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: church drama, distractions, golf, Mission, mission of the church, staying on course, the focus of the church, the gospel
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Words from WW Blog 
The Rightness of The Moment, Not The Headline
November 5, 2017WORDS FROM W.W. November 5, 2017
When Coach Jim Franklin ran like a madman towards the end zone at the end of his Penn State football team’s heartbreaking loss at Michigan State yesterday I, like most people who saw him sprinting, thought he was going to chastise the officials for some perceived blunder. When it turned out he was sprinting to catch some of his players who were heading to the locker room without shaking hands with the Spartan players it was reassuring that in the intensity of the contest someone whose job depends on winning still had the right perspective.
Even though the cameras caught his mad dash it was not something that had been orchestrated. It was simply the right thing to do, the correct decision made at a moment’s notice. The integrity of the decision was amplified considering the game had been interrupted by a weather delay of almost three and a half hours.
How many of us would have lost our cool if we had to wait to catch a delayed flight for three and a half hours? Raise your hand! Both of mine are pointing skyward.
There seem to be a lot of people who are willing to preach what is right in the moment when the cameras are rolling, or the press has a microphone stuck in front of their face, but the list gets a lot shorter of people who are willing to do the right thing in the heat of the moment.
Recently my wife, Carol, was at a high school volleyball game. Liberty High School was playing one of their arch rivals at the opponent’s gym. She heard and observed some actions- or, perhaps inactions- of a group of students of the host school. One young man had made a comment to one of the Liberty players on the court that had explicit sexual connotations to it. The group he was a part of included several young ladies. What Carol noticed was that not one of the female students was willing to do what was right at that moment. No one was willing to confront the young man with inappropriateness of his comment.
Yes, they were just high school students! High school students who have had it drilled into them in recent years about what sexual harassment and bullying is. Sometimes, however, all the knowledge in the world won’t cause someone to do what is right in the moment. Embarrassing someone causes cheap laughter and integrity never seeks to humiliate. It is too respectful for that.
Each one of us gets faced with a multiple of decisions that have two or more solutions. Many of those decisions also have a dividing line. Think a volleyball court with one side being right and the other side wrong. There are clear indications as to which side the ball- the decided on response- is on. None of us make all the right decisions, but over the course of a day, a week, a month it becomes clear who are the people who have integrity and who aren’t. Who are the ones who understand the right decision, the right thing to say, at that moment; and who are the ones who lack character and moral substance.
As a pastor I wish I could say that Christians have it all together, but, alas, I’ve met and seen too many people who confess to following Christ and have no integrity- people who stomp off towards the locker room when they don’t get their way.
Jim Franklin gets paid a lot of money to make right decisions, but they usually have to do with deciding when it’s a good time to blitz the quarterback or do a fake punt. His sprint to the end zone yesterday wasn’t what Penn State had in mind when they paid him to make the right decisions, and yet it was probably the best right decision he made all day.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, coaching, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: character, doing what's right, Football, good sportsmanship, having character, having integrity, inappropriate comments, integrity, Jim Franklin, Michigan State Spartans, Penn State, shaking hands, sportsmanship
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